The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2002)

For the 1985 game, see The Fellowship of the Ring.

The Fellowship of the Ring

Developers
	Surreal Software
Publishers
	Vivendi Universal Games
Engines
	Riot Engine
Release dates
Windows	September 24, 2002
Reception
Metacritic	59
IGDB	51
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Adventure, RPG
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Fantasy
Series	Middle-earth

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2002) is a singleplayer third-person action, adventure and RPG game in the Middle-earth series.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 4 DRM.

This game is not available digitally.

Demo/free trial

A demo is available here.

Monetization

Type	Notes
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
No microtransactions	None

Essential Improvements

Patches

• Patch 1.1 (US copy only) can be downloaded here.

Game Data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Fellowship.cfg

The configuration file is encrypted.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Saves\

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		See Widescreen resolution or use the Widescreen & FOV Fix.
Multi-monitor		See Widescreen resolution or use the Widescreen & FOV Fix.
Ultra-widescreen		See Widescreen resolution or use the Widescreen & FOV Fix.
4K Ultra HD		See Widescreen resolution or use the Widescreen & FOV Fix.
Field of view (FOV)		See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed		Run Fellowship.exe with -setup command line argument and tick Windowed Mode.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		2x, 4x and 6x MSAA (only through the startup launcher).
High-fidelity upscaling		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Triple Buffering. VSync does not work on Windows 10.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Causes issues during combats, dialogues and cutscenes. Cursor mouse in menus is broken over 75 FPS. See High frame rate issues.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Widescreen resolution

The game uses internally an aspect ratio of 3:2 by default.

This fix was only tested on the US 1.1 version, so the location of the hex value to change might differ for other localizations and versions.

Hex edit Fellowship.exe

Open Fellowship.exe with a hex editor such as HxD. Press Ctrl+G and write the offset address 0011D948. Search for 00 00 C0 3F. Change it to: AB AA AA 3F for 4:3 00 00 A0 3F for 5:4 55 55 D5 3F for 15:9 39 8E E3 3F for 16:9 CD CC CC 3F for 16:10 CD CC EC 3F for 1.85:1 C3 F5 18 40 for 2.39:1 D7 A3 30 40 for 2.76:1 00 00 70 40 for 15:4 00 00 80 40 for 12:3 9A 99 99 40 for 48:10 00 00 A0 40 for 45:9 AB AA AA 40 for 48:9 26 B4 17 40 for 21:9 (2560x1080) 8E E3 18 40 for 21:9 (3440x1440) 9A 99 19 40 for 21:9 (3840x1600) CD CC 4C 40 for 32:10 39 8E 63 40 for 32:9 Save the file (All resolutions supported by the graphics card's driver that match the selected aspect ratio should now appear in the in-game's graphics settings). Notes Vert-; Field of View (FOV) is cropped on wider aspect ratios than 3:2. To fix it, see Field of view (FOV). Higher resolutions make the HUD and texts very small, and they become unreadable at resolutions like 4K. Use dgVoodoo 2 to fix it.

Use the Widescreen & FOV Fix

Field of view (FOV)

Like the fix above, it was only tested on the US 1.1 version, so the location of the hex value to change might differ for other localizations and versions.

Hex edit Fellowship.exe

Open Fellowship.exe with a hex editor such as HxD. Press Ctrl+G and write the offset address 001208C0. Press OK. In the address, highlight the last 4 pairs of values. Go to the Data inspector tab at the right side and change the value in the Single (float32) row according to this formula: 64 / (aspect_ratio * 0,75) (example: default value is 64 because 64 / (1.333333 * 0.75) = 64 (aproximately), find the aspect_ratio value just by dividing the desired width and height). Press Ctrl+G and write the offset address 00120A90. Press OK. In the address, highlight the first 8 pairs of values. Go to the Data inspector tab at the right side and put the same value from step 5, but now in the Double (float64) row instead. Notes Fixes both the gameplay and cutscenes FOV. Objects at the sides beyond the game's default aspect ratio (3:2) are still rendered, even at extremely high FOVs like those needed for triple and quad monitor resolutions.

Use the Widescreen & FOV Fix

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Enabled by default.
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music and SFX.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
Italian
Polish				Details
Russian

Issues fixed

Black Screen on startup

Use dgVoodoo v2.82.3 or newer (older versions will not work)

Use 3D-Analyze
Download and run 3D-Analyze as administrator. Click on Select and add Fellowship.exe from the game directory. Tick LOTR texture fix. Click Run. Notes If the black screen still occurs, try checking force windowed mode. The Save batch file! button will create a .BAT shortcut for the game. It uses 3DAnalyze's internal renderer (Direct3D8 in this case), so tools like ReShade won't work.

High frame rate issues

Limit the Frame rate to 60 FPS
Notes When running the game from 3D Analyze, it's necessary to use third-party software like Bandicam or RivaTuner. Nvidia Control Panel's FPS limiter doesn't work.

Set the refresh rate to 60 Hz

Access the launcher

After the first time launching the game, the launcher won't show up again and won't be possible to configure some settings that are only available through it, since the configuration file is encrypted.

Run the game with the -setup command line argument

Hold ⇧ Shift while launching Fellowship.exe

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D User created profile, requires DGVoodoo2 v 2.55.4, see profile introdution. Note: Profile may not work with the latest wrapper, in case of issues please report to the vorpx forum.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	8

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98	2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium III 600 MHz	Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	800 MB
Video card (GPU)	Single-pass, multi-texture, and hardware T&L support 32 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.1 compatible	Nvidia GeForce 4 64 MB of VRAM